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The emigration of intellectuals and highly qualified professionals from developing to developed countries is often referred to as “brain drain.” It has become clear that while receiving countries enjoy “strong economic gains from the immigration of highly skilled migrants,” many developing nations, like Mexico, lose valuable, innovative workers. …

In the fifth of a six-part Baker Institute Viewpoints series, experts respond to the question: What are the implications of expanding border security?

Investments in border security must be carefully calibrated in order to effectively regulate international flows of people and goods. An increase in spending alone will not necessarily improve control of the border. Rather, any increase in spending must prioritize effective security processes that facilitate legitimate flows and economic exchange across the border. To most people, the border is a frontier that must be hermetically sealed to ward off a range of threats: unauthorized migration, smuggling of contraband and drugs, and potential terrorists. Unfortunately, these individual threats are often conflated. Certainly, transnational criminal enterprises exploit weak and ineffective border security. And certainly, pathways for moving migrants can be used to traffic arms and drugs as well. Cartels and other illicit networks exploit seams in state capacity and often co-mingle in opportunistic ways. Yet dealing with these complex threats by simply building a wall and attempting to seal the border is counterproductive.

In the fourth of a six-part Baker Institute Viewpoints series, experts respond to the question: What are the implications of expanding border security?

On June 27, the U.S. Senate passed the Border Security, Economic Opportunity and Immigration Modernization Act, a broad immigration reform bill that includes a path to citizenship for the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States. One of the major provisions of this legislation is an increase in funding for border security. The bill establishes the goal of achieving a 90 percent success rate of intercepting and deporting undocumented immigrants who attempt to cross the border. To meet this goal, the bill would provide an additional 20,000 Border Patrol agents, new fencing, electronic surveillance and unmanned drones. What are the implications of this massive influx of funding and resources for securing the border?

In the third of a six-part Baker Institute Viewpoints series, experts respond to the question: What are the implications of expanding border security?

Civil libertarians are already expressing alarm about increasing domestic surveillance capabilities at the border. This concern gestures toward a broader fear that contemporary threats to national security, particularly terror threats, have distorted the historical legal grounds that protect U.S. citizens from government surveillance and data collection. In actuality, if there is one area where the law provides well-recognized and expansive justification for domestic surveillance, it is at the border.

In the second of a six-part Baker Institute Viewpoints series, experts respond to the question: What are the implications of expanding border security?

There is virtually no agreement between the major political parties, or even between the legislative and executive branch members of the same party, regarding the state of security on the border or such issues as spillover violence and corruption in Mexico. Furthermore, underlying philosophical and ideological divisions exist behind the various views on our border with Mexico, even extending to patterns of governance and life in America itself. In fact, the Senate bill now stalled by the House in many ways represents another flashpoint in the ongoing crisis of consensus in our nation.

In the first of a six-part Baker Institute Viewpoints series, experts respond to the question: What are the implications of expanding border security?

The immigration bill recently passed in the Senate assigns nearly $50 billion to increase border security – a border “surge.” This unprecedented deployment of resources includes 20,000 additional Border Patrol agents; new technology such as drones, sensors and cameras; and hundreds of miles of wall along the border. Proponents reason that the border surge will bring order to the region and stem the flow of undocumented immigrants into the United States. However, this expenditure could lead to multiple unintended consequences that should give pause to anyone considering it.

In the days following Mexico’s July 1 presidential election, members of the world political class rushed to congratulate Enrique Peña Nieto, the PRI candidate who won with just 38 percent of the vote. The PRI — defeated in 2000 after 70 years in power — was quick to pronounce itself a “new” (i.e., reformed) party. Peña Nieto was also eager to move on, and soon began to discuss his plans for Mexico and a U.S.-Mexico binational agenda. But the post-election honeymoon was not to last. …

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